


blink and you'll miss me

by floweringbloom



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dimension-Hopping Rose, Episode AU: s03e10 Blink, F/M, Getting Together, Reunions, Romantic Fluff, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-06
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-05-18 20:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14859813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/floweringbloom/pseuds/floweringbloom
Summary: In 1969, the Doctor's timey-wimey detector picks up a temporally misplaced, dimension-hopping Rose.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Because I wanted a fic where a Rose keeping secrets about the future is stuck in a flat with the Doctor and Martha.
> 
> No established Doctor/Rose. He's completely smitten, though. 
> 
> (And they'll have that conversation eventually, even if Rose has to do all the work.)

The temporal disturbance detector dinged on the table, and the Doctor shoved the capacitive buffers he'd been working on aside as he picked up the cobbled-together mess of a device, barely remembering to pick up his coat as he flew out the door. The scanner's signal was fading rapidly - another thing he'd have to fix up, if this wasn't his ticket home - and he chased down the source, skidding down the streets and around corners in a way that would have Rose giggling, right on his heels.

Rose. His chest twinged in an all-too-familiar way and he skidded to a stop as the signal died out. The Doctor shook the scanner in a half-hearted attempt at recalibration, then pulled out his sonic and had another go at it; he already knew he'd have to increase the flux-dependent sensitivity to pick up enough of a signal to locate the source, particularly if he added in some crude triangulation - 

"Doctor?"

The Doctor's hearts both stuck in his throat at the familiar voice, and he looked up painfully slowly from his detector to - oh. It really was. "Rose?"

She looked beautiful, but she always looked beautiful; she was in a TARDIS-blue leather jacket and had a rather dangerous-looking gun by her feet and the Doctor couldn't imagine how she'd gotten here, couldn't think of anything but what he was doing: running toward her, arms outstretched, and sweeping her up into a hug. She laughed and he'd pulled her so close he could feel it in her chest, rumbling through them both. He could smell her hair, strawberries and vanilla, and a tingle that might have been void stuff, and he was saying, "Rose, Rose, _Rose_ \- "

He licked a stripe up her neck just to be sure, and it was her, all human skin and sweat and hormones, the chemicals of her body wash and void travel without a capsule (and they'd be talking about that) and under that, essential Rose. She made a startled noise and got her hands in his hair, which was fantastic, though the way she was pushing him away was slightly less so. "Okay, okay, Doctor," she said, still laughing, and he attempted a pout as she pulled back just a bit, but he was grinning too widely for it to work. "Just give me a sec."

"An actual second," the Doctor said, "which, by the way, has already passed, or are you doing that human thing where you say a measurement of time that's - established, Rose, you've got whole colleges of people who determined how long a second really is - "

She covered his mouth with her hand and he raised his eyebrows at her, tongue itching. "No," she said, but she was smiling, and the Doctor would do anything to keep it there. Well. Just about anything. He wouldn't let her go.

"You're not going, are you?" he said, quickly, pulling her hand away. She was reaching in her pocket for something and pulled it out, shaking her head. "Rose, you're - you're here and you're staying, right?"

"Of course I am," she said, and stuck her tongue out at him, and the Doctor felt a near overwhelming urge to lick it. Just to check she was still her, of course. "As long as you let me make this call - gotta cancel the automatic recall. So. Gimme a mo', okay?"

"Oh, a 'mo', now, is it?" he grumbled, but she grabbed his hand and interlaced their fingers as she opened her communicator, and that was almost just as good.

"Command, this is Agent Tyler. Cancel recall, will you? Over."

The speaker crackled tinnily, and the Doctor thought, moodily, that he'd be able to do much better. "Got it," a familiar voice said - Mickey, he realised with some surprise - "and don't forget he owes you a snog, babe."

"Ugh," Rose said, but she was pink-cheeked as she switched her communicator off. "Sorry about him. I have to say, though, I wasn't expecting to find you here."

"Where were you expecting to find me?" the Doctor said, his brain still slightly stuck on Mickey's remark.

"Well," Rose said, tongue between her teeth, "with the TARDIS, for one."

"The TARDIS?" the Doctor repeated, and then shook himself out of contemplation of the pink sliver of her tongue. "Right. Yes. She's in 2007."

Rose leaned forward to take a look around at the street, and she was close enough he could hug her again, so he did. She giggled into his neck and grinned at him when he set her down. "This doesn't look like 2007. Bad driving strike again?"

"Oi!" the Doctor protested. "No, this is - long story, really, but there's a very straightforward causal loop that means I need to find a man and tell him to put a video of me on seventeen DVDs, so in the future some people can send the TARDIS back here to 1969. I have a folder with notes. Oh, and a flat! A real, actual, human flat."

"Carpets and doors?" Rose teased, and he beamed at her.

"Terrible, isn't it? No mortgage, thankfully." He gave a dramatic shudder, and Rose bumped his elbow with hers. "But now you're here!"

"Stuck in 1969," she said, raising her eyebrows, and his grin widened.

"Stuck with you," he said, nudging her, "not so bad, hm?" and he felt like he could float away from her brilliant smile. "Really, though, Rose - how did you get here?"

She looked around, took a step back and slung her gun over her shoulder. "Maybe we should head to your flat," she said, "seeing as you have one. I'll probably need clothes and stuff, too - I have some jewellery of the other Jackie's that Mum said I could pawn off. Are you good for rent and bills and things? I know how you are with money."

"Capitalism at its worst," he said, and wound his arm around hers as he interlaced their fingers again. She stroked her thumb against his and his hearts raced as he swallowed. "Yes, it's sorted. Well, I think it is. Martha handles all of that."

"Martha?"

Was that jealousy he heard? The Doctor sneaked a surreptitious glance at Rose's face, which told him nothing. He didn't think he'd mind if Rose was jealous, though he'd have to stop her before she staked her claim on him or anything too risque. "I'm travelling with her at the moment. Was travelling. We're not doing much travelling right now."

"It's okay, Doctor," Rose said, and patted his arm. "I'm glad you have someone."

"Not - have, have," he said, incomprehensibly. "I mean, not like I have you. I... you know that, right? That I..."

"Yeah," Rose said, smiling up at him, "I missed you, too."

They weren't actually that far from the flat, which was probably a good thing, considering. The Doctor peeked 'round the entranceway to make sure their landlady wasn't in and hurried Rose up the stairs, where he spent a good minute searching his transdimensional pockets for the keys. "Aha!" he exclaimed, once he'd found them, and unlocked the door, gesturing her inside. "The flat."

"Carpets," Rose announced, mock-seriously. "Very nice. And so many doors."

She set her gun down by the television cabinet (television missing, as most of it was on the coffee table in pieces) and made a show of looking around. There were a whole four doors. "Rose," the Doctor said, and she bit her lip and sighed.

"Yeah," she said, "I know. Let me make a cuppa, and I'll tell you all about it. It's... you can't do anything right now, anyway, not without the TARDIS. And I think this is a little early in your timeline, too."

"A little early in _my_ timeline?" the Doctor asked, and leaned against the kitchen door as she filled the kettle and searched the cupboards for tea. "Left - no, other left. What about my timeline?"

She shot him a look that said she knew he was pressing for answers before tea. "I've been following your timeline," she said, "well, actually, the TARDIS's, thanks to this." She tugged at her TARDIS key. "We calibrated the dimension cannon - that's what gets me across the walls - to hers, so I'd have a better chance of finding you. Doesn't always work out right, though. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've gotten somewhere just after you left."

"But the dimensional walls - "

"Yeah," she said, "that's the thing. You know how Pete's world runs ahead of this one, right? Well, when we first started the dimension cannon project, it wasn't working - because of the walls, yeah? But about a year ago, it suddenly started to work - right when we started to notice the stars going out."

"Stars going out," the Doctor repeated, his mind whirring. "And you think that's happening here as well?"

"'s what I meant by 'early'," she said, and, kettle boiling, took it off the stove to pour water into the teapot. "For dimensional travel you need weak points on both sides, yeah? Pete's world's walls are already weak, but usually when I pop over it's later in your timeline. But there's this... sustained paradox sometime in your future, established on a flux point - "

"Weakening the walls on this side, too," he finished, feeling a little surprised, then guilty for feeling it; that was his Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth. "But if that's in my future - "

She nodded. "We've been aiming for right before," she said, "or right after, but I think I got too close to the start, when the TARDIS was bein' pulled apart by something - I should've bounced straight back to Pete's world like usual, but I'm pretty sure she shunted me off here instead."

"Because her timeline's bound to mine," the Doctor said, and ran a thoughtful hand through his hair. "Wait, a year ago? How long has it been for you?"

"Nearly four years," she said, and bumped him with her hip as she took their cups and a teapot out to the small lounge. "You?"

"Five months, sixteen days, twenty-two hours and fifteen seconds," he said, without thought, and felt his face warm at the look she gave him, her smile enough to make him giddy with delight. "What?"

"Nothing," she said teasingly, but when he set an arm around her on the couch, she snuggled into his side. "I'm just... glad, that it wasn't as long for you."

"I feel like there's an insult somewhere in there," he said into her hair, and she laughed into his shoulder.

"Not really," she said. "It's just that you're rubbish alone."

He really was. The Doctor gulped down some tea to avoid thinking about just where he'd been, that time before Martha after he'd said goodbye; even since then, he'd done some terrible things Rose would have his head for if she knew. 

Empathetic as always, Rose didn't press. "So tell me what this causal loop is all about?"

The Doctor jumped on the distraction and found himself explaining it all to Rose, folder at hand and photos spread out on top of his tinkering work. The flat, Martha's job, the timey-wimey detector - "A video camera and an autocue, too," he added, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I've been putting together bits and pieces, but I still need more parts."

"If there's anything in that," she said, nodding toward the gun by the door, "you can use it if you want. Won't need it now, I hope."

"What is it for?" the Doctor asked. "I thought you didn't..."

"Yeah, no," Rose said quickly, "I still hate 'em. But your timeline's got a fair few Daleks hanging about."

Wincing, the Doctor squeezed his eyes shut. Even now, he could see the Daleks threatening Rose; even now, he heard their metallic voices, the horror of every moment she was with them alone. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," she said, firmly. "Doctor, it's not your fault. I'm the one who decided to do this, remember?"

"But you wouldn't be jumping dimensions in the first place if it weren't for - "

"Torchwood, and the Cybermen, and the Daleks," she said, and gripped his hand tight. "Blame those who actually did it, Doctor. And I'm here now, aren't I? I'm okay."

He hissed a breath through his teeth and met her steady gaze. "Yeah," he said, "you're here and okay. I just want you to keep being here and okay - you know that, right?"

"I know," she said, and drew him into a hug, one he accepted gladly. He squeezed his arms around her and was probably clutching far too hard at her shirt, and he pressed his nose to her hair and breathed her in, again. Rose was here, he reminded himself. Rose had come back, and somehow, was already saving him from himself.

"And," she added, pulling back, "we can go pick up what you need now, if you want. I need to get some things; how's your kitchen stock?"

"It's fine?" the Doctor said, too quickly, and Rose sighed.

"Really? Don't tell me you've left all the cooking to Martha, too. I know you can cook - what about that Trazallian stew?"

"It's hardly the same without the local spices," the Doctor said indignantly. "I could pick some up on Kasta III, but there's no real local Earth equivalent for the ground root of - "

"Doctor," Rose said, very pointedly, and he stopped. She was obviously trying not to laugh. "All right; clothes, then food, then your tinkering parts. Are you coming?"

"Shopping?" He pulled a face. "You know how I feel about shopping."

"And I'll be going with or without you," Rose said, a lovely amount of tongue in her smile, and the Doctor had to force himself to look up from it to her expectant gaze. "You with me?"

"Oh, fine," he said, probably not fooling anyone with his grudging tone. He definitely wasn't fooling Rose.

Shopping by himself was a chore. Shopping with Rose, on the other hand, had turned into an adventure all on its own; after they pawned off a fair bit of jewellery she went straight for a clothing shop, and then started to try on a multitude of lovely dresses while all the Doctor had to do was sit and watch. He offered his opinion on patterns and length and cut and design - "That would be illegal on Frzoo," he said, grinning as Rose spun and the skirt lifted up - until they were both giggling over odd fashions and Rose had picked out enough for two bags worth. Then, she insisted on picking up things for him ("Do you even have any pants, Doctor?" she asked, and he'd looked away, tugging at his ear, face warming at her cheeky smile) and they walked away with a half-dozen Oxfords and ties.

And he'd had enormous fun slipping biscuits and a dozen jars of jam into her basket when she tried to pick out vegetables and fruit, setting his hands on her waist and his chin on her hair as she examined apples for consumption. "Bananas," he said, again, and could feel her roll her eyes.

"We have bananas. I know you like apple pie."

"Only with you," he admitted, and wondered if she could hear the way his hearts raced when she tilted her head and looked up at him, a terrifying sweetness to her smile.

It was mid-afternoon by the time they'd finished, and the Doctor had sprung for lunch half-way through. "Finally," Rose had said, when he produced actual money from his voluminous coat, "I thought you'd never pay up."

"I've paid for chips!" he protested, completely delighted at the familiar argument, and Rose sat wedged against him on the bench outside, a solid, lovely warmth all along his side. "At least once."

"This time," she said. "But I paid for... oh, let's see. Our first date, of course, and after Downing Street - "

"We'd just been blown up, I wasn't exactly thinking of money - "

" - and don't forget after the Hoix - "

" - your own fault, really, if you expect me to pay you have to give me some advance warning, if I carried around currency for all planets and time periods - "

" - not to mention those chips you promised me before the ghosts."

He fell silent, but Rose was still watching him steadily, still smiling. "Well," he said, and cleared his throat. "This one's for then, then."

"'Bout time, cheapskate," she said, nudging him, and stole a chip from his side.

They returned to the flat with quite a haul, and Rose enlisted his help with copious flattery to his culinary expertise; they had a shepherd's pie bubbling in the oven and an apple one cooling on the counter and they'd fallen into cooking side-by-side again with a swiftness that made him feel strangely warm. Letting Rose out of his sight again still alarmed him, so he followed her into the shower after that, perching on the sink and telling her some of his more recent exploits as she washed her hair and offered commentary behind the curtain. It felt like after the Wire all over again, when he'd been anxious enough about her face being gone he'd dogged her side for two relative days in the Vortex, until she'd given him a permanent invitation to her shower and bed "so you don't regenerate from worrying."

"I'm not going to regenerate from worrying," he'd said, then, and said again now. "I'm not worrying."

"Sure," Rose said, and he could almost see her grin through the plastic. "That's you, not worrying at all."

"Yep," the Doctor said, popping the p, and Rose's laugh echoed wonderfully around the tiny room.

He did worry, just a little, when he heard a click at the door. Scrambling off the sink, he said, "Don't go anywhere," and peered out of the bathroom, sonic held aloft. Closing the front door, Martha gave him a very odd look, eyebrows crinkling, and the Doctor made an uncertain noise. "Oh. Martha. Hello."

"Did you cook?" she said, curiously. "I didn't mean to disturb your... showering."

"No, no, it's quite all right," he said quickly, and stepped out, making sure the door was closed behind him. "It's - aren't you back a bit early?"

"Yeah," she said, "it was quiet, so they let me go. Have you been... shopping?" She looked around the room, taking a step inside, and her gaze fixed on Rose's jacket tossed over the couch. "Whose is this? Doctor, did you - is there a girl in that shower?"

"No!" he yelped, and then winced. "I mean, yes, technically, she's female, and in the shower, and here, but it isn't like you're implying, I didn't pick her up off the street for sordid purposes - if anything, she picked me up off the street, I'd say - " He could almost hear Rose's voice in his head: _breathe_. He did. "It's Rose."

Possibly that explained less than he thought it might, by the way Martha was starting to frown. The Doctor tugged on his ear. "She used to travel with me," he said, after a moment. "She came back and we... ran into each other today. That's hers," he added, and picked the jacket off the couch; he couldn't help smiling at the feel of it in his hands, so much like his old one. "I'll just - "

He escaped to add it to the small wardrobe in his barely-used bedroom, alongside all of Rose's other newly-purchased clothes. She'd turned the shower off almost as soon as he'd left the bathroom and he was already itching to see her again, real and here and whole. She could talk to Martha, too - she always was better at that. The Doctor winced again, letting his head thump against the wall, and mumbled, "Rose."

He'd resigned himself to questions when the door opened and Martha, arms crossed, tipped her head to the lounge, but Rose saved him with a timely exit, looking utterly beautiful even with her hair damp and dripping onto the floor. "Missing that Corellian hairdryer," she said with a smile, and the Doctor sidled up to her and ran his fingers through the damp strands, already thinking of hairstyles she could do.

"You're terrible to your hair," he said, "I couldn't have you using something that would damage it more."

"I may've 'acquired' one off the other Torchwood," she said, grinning, and turned her smile on Martha as she offered her hand. "I'm not sure how much the Doctor's said about me - if anything," she added, with a sideways look that had him rub his neck, abashed, "but I used to travel with him. I'm Rose Tyler."

"Yes," Martha said dryly, "I've heard."

Rose's smile fixed slightly when Martha took her hand and immediately dropped it, and the Doctor found himself breaking the tension by clapping his hands, loud enough it made him start. "Right! Food. You humans and your regular eating schedules, you must be feeling it by now."

"That alien thing called hunger?" Rose teased, and he grinned at her.

"That's the one."

"Wait," Martha started, "you cooked?"

"Don't let him say he doesn't," Rose said to her, in a stage-whisper that had the Doctor give her a look over his shoulder as they headed to the kitchen. "He pretends not to until you find out he apprenticed under - who was it - "

"Mshlankalata," the Doctor said, unable to help himself, "the greatest chef in a dozen star systems!" Rose mouthed it alongside him, and he tried to look chiding and mostly failed. "It isn't that I don't cook, Martha, it's that this is hardly up to the standards of someone of my calibre - "

"Right," Rose said, with tongue in her smile, "you only like cooking the weird stuff now."

"Says the human who told me I could seduce people with my lasagne."

"Worked on Jack, didn't it?" Rose headed straight for the oven as Martha took a seat at the kitchen table with only two chairs. She had a complicated expression on her face, and Rose's smile fell. "Sorry," Rose added, "you should say something if we get a little - you know."

Rose elbowed the Doctor, pointedly, and he nearly dropped the plates. "What?"

"Oh, nothing," she muttered, rolling her eyes, and before he could ask again was shoving him toward the only free chair, two plates of food in hand. Thus herded, he awkwardly took a seat, his eyes on Rose as she stood near him, leaning against the bench with her own.

"It's fine," Martha said, somewhat belatedly, and their knees bumped under the table. "Did the Doctor tell you how we met?"

"Judoon platoon on the moon!" He smiled at her, then Rose. "There was a plasmavore at the Royal Hope Hospital, that's where I met Dr Martha Jones."

"Oh, you're a doctor?"

"Yes," Martha said, "I saved the Doctor's life then, too. He'd gotten himself nearly drained to death by that plasmavore, and I had to perform CPR."

"A doctor for the Doctor," Rose said, and he wet his lips and looked at her; there wasn't the stubborn censure he usually got when he was reckless but something much sadder in her steady gaze. It felt like he was there, all over again - that manic papered-over despair right after losing her, as if he pushed himself hard enough he'd regenerate again and not feel the lack of her presence as a bleeding, gaping wound. Quite genuinely, Rose added, "Thanks for being there for him, Martha. He's rubbish when he doesn't have someone to show off to."

"Oi," the Doctor protested, half-heartedly, and took another bite of food to hide how much he ached to pull her close.

"Yeah, I've been getting that," Martha said, with a fraction more warmth. "Thanks for the food, by the way. Are you staying long?"

"Of course she is," the Doctor blurted, a shred of panic slipping out from his control. "Right?"

"Yeah, 'course," Rose said easily, "but that's not what you're asking, right? I don't exactly have a place to stay at the moment, so if you don't mind putting me up - I can chip in with rent and things, get a job if I need one, too."

"We shouldn't be here _that_ long," the Doctor said, on more familiar ground. "And where else would you stay?"

"Rude," Rose chided, and leaned over enough she could gently kick at his shin. "You're not the only one living here, you know."

"Martha doesn't mind. Do you?"

"I suppose not," Martha said. "The Doctor doesn't sleep in the second bedroom, so you can have it if you want."

"That'd be great, thanks," Rose agreed, and shot him a pointed look when he opened his mouth; he closed it. "Flatmates, then?"

Martha cracked a faint smile. "Yeah, keeping up a two-bedroom flat does need more than one person working a minimum-wage job."

"Don't I know it." Rose's smile was more tentative than the Doctor expected. "Not that this one'd know. 'n as much as I'd love to pick up something at UNIT, pretty sure I'll just be goin' back to my roots."

"Stuck in a shop basement with Autons?" the Doctor said, waggling his eyebrows and sticking out a hand, and Rose giggled and took it, lacing their fingers together as she pulled him to his feet.

"No running, this time," she said. "Least, none without you."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rose and the Doctor have half a chat, Rose and Martha clear the air, and Rose faces some Future Knowledge™.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments, all! I'm delighted people actually like this silly self-indulgent fic. It's all downhill from here! 
> 
> (And by downhill I mean more silly and self-indulgent than it already is, if that's even possible at this point. One day, the Doctor and Rose might even kiss.)

Of all the things that had to wake her up, it had to be a nightmare.

Rose tiptoed out of the Doctor's bedroom, silently closing the door behind her. He slept in a manner entirely alien: still and quiet, only the rise and fall of his chest a visible testament to life except for the tiny frisson of telepathy she could feel from his skin. They didn't share dreams when they shared a bed, not exactly, but Rose knew the Doctor slept better whenever she did, knew that an easy way to soothe his nightmares was holding him tight and letting herself feel that rush of affection she always did - no. She might as well admit it; it was love.

And that was the problem, wasn't it? Not the feeling itself, which she'd grown accustomed to sometime between their first first date and the gentling of the Doctor's sharp blue eyes as she showed him beauty on a frozen planet he'd never thought to see, but that she'd said it, to him, out loud. She hadn't thought anything of it at the time - if it was her last chance, she wanted him to know - but now she could feel it hanging over her head, consequences dangling on a precipice waiting to fall.

Rose was half-way to the kitchen before she noticed a blinking light in the dark. Her communicator was glowing green and she sighed, picked it up, and took it with her, filling up the kettle after closing the door. Only then did she click the line on. "What's up?"

"Forgetting protocol already?" Mickey answered, a quiet crackle across time and dimensions. "You found him, yeah?"

"No TARDIS, though," Rose said, keeping her voice low. "Don't suppose you can send anything through?"

"It's a miracle we can talk to each other," Mickey said frankly. "Taylor can't believe it. You told him everything yet?"

Rose pressed a tired hand to her eyes. "Yeah, no. 's useless at the moment, anyway - you know how he gets when there's a problem he can't solve. Has anyone found out anything more?"

"I think we're lucky we have the info we do. Two - or is it three? - overlapping timelines is no joke. Everything keeps getting stuck in that bubble universe - your trip into the paradox is the only one we've managed."

Rose remembered it vividly: the scent of blood and metal in the air, the taste of it on her tongue. "Probably for the best."

"Yeah," Mickey agreed, and she winced at the deliberateness of his pause. "And you're okay?"

"'m fine," she said, "or, I will be. I'll contact you when we're free of this causal loop and back to the TARDIS, yeah? You're already so far ahead of us, I don't want to start messing with the temporal congruence between dimensions just in case."

"Oh, now those are some big words."

Rose turned her head to see the Doctor, looking adorably rumpled in his new jimjams and his hair just the amount of messy Rose liked it. He gave her a lazy grin, eyes shadowed in the dark, and took the few steps between them, wrapping his arms around her from behind. She relaxed into his hold, relishing the relative coolness of his skin and the way he gripped her tight, setting his chin on her head and breathing her in; she tuned in enough to hear Mickey saying, " - probably right. Hey, boss."

"Mickey the Idiot," the Doctor said fondly. "And Rose is right - better you keep linear with the future than with us at the moment."

"Yeah, yeah," Mickey said, "I got it. Don't have too much fun, you two."

"Don't wait up," Rose said, a smile tugging at her lips as she looked up at the Doctor, and he pressed a kiss to her temple for a brief, lingering moment before she clicked the communicator off and he stepped away.

He went for the kettle, taking it off just before it whistled on the stove. "Sorry for waking you," Rose said, and he ran his hand through his hair and looked at her thoughtfully, searching. "Thought I'd at least bring you tea to make up for it."

"It's fine," he said. "I don't need as much sleep as you."

"Still," Rose said, and elbowed him as she brought him their mugs. "I think you've been putting it off."

He leaned forward, set a hand on her cheek, and his expression was gentle as he ran his thumb over the circles under her eyes. "And you haven't been doing the same? Bad dreams?"

Rose let her eyes slip closed, unconsciously leaning in. "You didn't get too much of 'em, did you?"

"Nah," he said, and she could feel his gaze like a weight on her when he let his hand fall. By the time she opened her eyes he had turned away, busying himself with making tea. "Not really. Even with your somewhat enhanced telepathic capabilities, you couldn't project enough for that."

"Superior Time Lord biology?" Rose said, offering him a smile, and he returned it with a faint quirk of his mouth.

"Superior Time Lord training, to be more precise."

He passed her her mug and she wrapped her hands around it, the warmth of it seeping through her fingers as she leaned against him, their shoulders bumping. She'd spent all of a day in the flat and it reminded her, paradoxically, of the first six months of her place in the other London; empty of any touches that made something home. "That mean I could learn it?"

"If you wanted to," the Doctor said, with a faux-casual flippancy. "Of course, you wouldn't reach the capabilities of a naturally telepathic species, but you have one advantage."

"You?" Rose teased, and his smile edged into something far more natural, with a warmth in it she'd terribly missed.

"Me," he agreed, and wiggled his fingers at her. "Hello."

"Hello," she repeated, unable to hide the sheer affection in her voice, and she set her mug down to wrap her arms around his neck, to press her smile against his throat. He hadn't yet pulled away, and she confessed, "I really, really missed you," into his collar, even knowing he would know.

A breath shuddered out of him, and he said, voice cracking, "Rose..."

She'd imagined it a hundred times: that he'd shut down, that he'd run away. The Doctor had never been one for emotional confessions and Rose had been perfectly happy to let that stand, knowing he cared for her as she did him; that her three simple, impossibly true words on a beach would change things between them irreversibly was as much a source of dread to her as of hope.

But he wasn't running now. Rose pulled back just enough to meet his gaze, his expression conflicted, almost afraid. "I still can't quite believe you're here."

She dropped her hold on him to reach for his hand and tangled their fingers together, palm against palm, perfectly familiar. Firmly, she said, "Doctor... I'll always come back to you."

He said, "Rose Tyler," with a rawness that made her nerves tremble. "You keep saying that, and I'll actually start to believe you."

"Yeah?" Rose said, biting her lip on her growing smile. "Better watch out - I'll say it until you do."

The smile that broke across his face was full of such fondness she could feel it as an echo through his touch, and she welcomed the answering swell of it in her chest. Faint sunlight was starting to stream in through the kitchen blinds, and the Doctor's face was drawn in slats of light and shadow as he looked at her and she steadily held his gaze. "And how long will you stay?"

A memory, and a promise. Rose said quietly, "Forever."

It felt like holding her breath a second too long, a moment in time stretched to eternity. The Doctor's gaze dropped to her mouth when she wet her lips, and Rose's pulse picked up, a sudden thrill of nervousness flooding her veins. His eyes were dark, fathomless and she could see the faint freckles across his nose and she couldn't quite breathe as she was suddenly, sharply struck by how much she wanted him. The faint buzz of a mobile phone alarm broke the moment; the Doctor's head lifted and Rose was left blinking in its wake, wondering when he'd gotten quite so close.

"That yours?"

"Martha's?" Rose suggested, and forced herself to turn away, draining the last of her tea and setting her mug in the sink. "I've only got my superphone on me, and that's been off since yesterday."

"Right," the Doctor said, shaking his head as if to clear it and taking a deliberate step away from her. "Of course. Seven-sharp, that's Martha. If only all my companions had that discipline."

"Oh, don't start," Rose said, and managed a smile. "It was bad enough the first time you dragged me out of bed after four hours - "

He sniffed. "Humans are perfectly capable of surviving on that much sleep."

"Not this one," Rose said, her smile relaxing at the reminder of their old argument; the old him would gripe about how much time she spent in bed like it personally offended him, and after his regeneration, the Doctor had taken the griping straight to her, to the point where half her mornings - "There are no mornings on the TARDIS, Rose!" - were spent waking up to the Doctor sorting through her wardrobe, nattering about the places they were going to see that day. Now, the Doctor was rocking on his heels, grinning at her like he was thinking the exact same thing, and Rose half-heartedly rolled her eyes at him as she checked the teapot. "How does Martha take her tea?"

"Er," the Doctor said, and his eyes widened as he looked down at himself. "Right, Martha! I'd better - "

He disappeared in a flurry of pyjamas and messy hair and Rose mumbled, "Oh, _now_ you're shy," just loud enough that he'd hear. She busied herself with breakfast in the meantime - surely toast couldn't go wrong - and had just poured out a thankfully-still-hot cup of tea for Martha when she saw her, standing frozen by the kitchen door.

"Morning," Rose said, and gave her a smile. "Not sure how you take it, but we've got cream and sugar."

"Right," Martha said, and rubbed at her forehead, squeezing her eyes briefly shut. "Sorry. Rose - morning."

"'s'okay, really." Rose peace-offered up a plate. "Toast?"

Martha collected herself with admirable haste once she'd sat down at the kitchen table and doctored her tea (cream, no sugar), and by the time Rose had cracked open one of the Doctor's many jam jars and spread it on a slice of her own toast she could feel Martha's eyes on her. It made her feel underdressed for the morning, in her pyjamas without makeup and her hair a complete mess, and she cleared her throat to break the silence, said, "You're working this morning, right? Mind if I come out with you?"

"Yeah, morning shift," Martha said with a faint grimace. "You have plans?"

"Gotta find myself a job if I want to keep up my side of the bills." Rose took a bite of her toast and chewed it thoughtfully. "Guess there isn't much choice, though - probably end up in a shop like you. Who'd hire a girl with no papers?"

"You might be surprised," the Doctor said as he swanned in, fully dressed, and stole a hefty bite of Rose's toast. She waggled the jar at him and he took that, too, still talking through his mouthful: "On Orext Beta, society's set up so jobs go to whoever's least qualified - oi!"

Rose smacked him lightly on the shoulder, and he swallowed and cleared his throat. "Not that I mean you aren't qualified - "

"Do I need to take that jar back?"

"No!" He clutched it to his chest, scooping up a glob with his fingers. Rose glanced over at Martha, intending to share an exasperated look, but she was watching the Doctor with an odd twist to her mouth that fell when Rose gave her a tentative smile. Whatever the Doctor said next was entirely muffled by his fingers in his mouth, and Rose, despite her amusement, still sighed.

"I'll keep track of which ones he gets his fingers in."

" - not actually a problem," the Doctor continued, fingers clear of his mouth and sticky with saliva and jam, and Rose felt a terribly fond rush of love for him; she'd missed even his bad habits, which showed just how far she'd fallen. "Time Lord saliva has potent antibiotic properties - "

"Wait, really?" Martha said, eyebrows rising, and the Doctor beamed at her.

"Yes! Much more effective than your human remedies, too. So," he added, pointedly in Rose's direction, "eating jam out of a jar isn't an issue. No chance of external contamination."

"Didn't see you licking your fingers before you stuck 'em in there," Rose said, raising her eyebrows right back at him. "And who knows where they've been."

The Doctor's proud grin faltered and, unaccountably, he started to blush. Rose's mind stalled somewhat as the Doctor coughed and tugged on his ear and said, floundering and awkwardly high-pitched, "I - they're - "

"No, go back," Martha said, "your saliva's an antibiotic? How does that work, then?"

With his face still faintly pink, the Doctor grasped at Martha's conversational gambit with visible relief. Rose tuned him out as soon as she realised the Doctor had gone into lecture mode and the discussion was largely in medical terms she'd only vaguely heard of before; she cleared up the breakfast dishes instead and he only glanced at her again when she hip-checked him on her way out the door.

Amused, Rose found herself smiling again as she picked out clothes for the day. It helped take her mind off the Doctor's slip in composure, the way she'd thought he might have kissed her; she'd told herself while working on the dimension cannon that however much she wanted to hear the end of the Doctor's sentence on Bad Wolf Bay, they had time and she was going to take it. In a flirty pink dress and her hair painstakingly pinned to her approval, Rose pressed her finger to her bottom lip and really looked at herself in the bathroom mirror: even nearly four years later, she was still that same girl who'd laugh as she won a bet with him in front of the Queen, who'd clutch at the Doctor's hand and relish in his hugs and pretend she didn't care if they never had more.

The Doctor loved her; she'd known that, for all of his inability to say it when it mattered. That he might want her shouldn't be more of a jump, and yet even this tentative confirmation sent a delighted thrill through her, an effervescent bubbling joy. This unplanned detour might have given her the best chance to confront him she'd ever have, without the distraction of new places to see and people to meet and things to do - they'd be forced into sorting this out stuck here in a single enclosed flat, and Rose remembered the way he'd looked at her.

"You've got this," Rose told her reflection. Something would give. It wouldn't be her.

So resolved, Rose left the bathroom to the tail end of a conversation, Martha's voice a sharp hiss: " - won't give me _some_ explanation - "

"It's always domestics with you lot, isn't it?" the Doctor snapped, barely managing to keep his voice low enough to not pass through two doors. He sounded sharp, irritated in a way that Rose was only vaguely familiar with, the way he hadn't really been since big ears and leather before Rose's coaxing smiles. "I'm telling you - "

Rose leaned on the kitchen doorframe and pointedly cleared her throat. "Doctor."

Risen to her feet at the table, Martha's gaze slid between them, a pinched anger to her mouth and furrowed eyebrows, and pushed past Rose to get to the front door. "Sure, I wouldn't want to bother you with 'domestics' while I go to work - to pay for the bills and this flat we're stuck in!"

As the door slammed behind her, the Doctor's gaze settled on Rose. Rose tilted her head and saw the way he exhaled; the pull to his mouth dropping, the worry and stress stiffening his frame slowly loosening. He opened his mouth, closed it. Rose said, "A shopgirl, a doctor, and a time-travelling alien, stuck in a two-bedroom in 1969."

His mouth twitched. "Sounds like a bad sitcom."

"Bit domestic," Rose said, and it came out more sympathetically than she meant it to, for the tiredness in his face. "'s okay, I'll go after her. You all right?"

"I'm always all right," he said in rote response, and Rose could practically see the self-recrimination building itself up behind his eyes. She sighed, closed the distance between them, and pressed a kiss to his cheek that left a faint smear of lipgloss behind.

"You're worried, I know," she said, "but you haven't lost the TARDIS, not really, and this is tough on Martha too, yeah? 'm pretty sure she didn't sign up for," and she gestured around her. "All this."

"You're okay with it," he mumbled.

"I've been here for a day," Rose said, patiently, "plus - Doctor, I grew up on a council estate. Working retail's a chore, sure, but 's not like I'm not used to it. We'd get people like her in sometimes and it'd always be on the way to something better. And it's the 60s now, it'd be worse for her."

When she paused he was looking at her intently, half-smiling. "How did I ever live without you?"

Rose knew: his body on a stretcher, the TARDIS quiet and empty and alone. She swallowed. "You just need someone to tell you when you're being an arse. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Don't go too far," he said.

"I'll always come back to you," she said again. She meant it.

 

She caught up to Martha two blocks away, said, "I think you forgot this," and held out her bag. It was a cheap peace offering and Martha seemed to know it, but it seemed like she'd already cooled off to weary resignation.

"Thanks," Martha said, and took it. Rose followed a few steps beside her in silence.

She knew she had to say something, but it was what to start with that was the problem. In this, Rose was Sarah Jane; the old interloper, the one with history, and she didn't want things to start off like that had, catty jealousy and one-upmanship before they finally realised their common ground. She was worried it already had, though. Running her tongue along her teeth, she ended up checking her own bag for anything of interest: a new purse with a few pounds, a bar of chocolate the Doctor must have slipped in, and an engagement ring.

"You don't know where there's another pawn shop around, do you?" she said, after a moment. The ring was practically absurd, and she palmed it, considering, and nodded to the one they just passed. "Think if I sell any more to that one they'll be telling the police I stole it."

Nonplussed, Martha said, "Yeah, there's one down the street from where I'm working - is that an engagement ring?"

Rose was holding it up to the sunlight. The diamond was garishly large. "Awful, innit? Can't believe my dad - stepdad, I guess - actually bought the thing. Imagine, trying to wear this every day."

"God," Martha said, startled into a laugh. "It's... horrendously impractical."

Rose winked at her. "My mum was passin' all this old stuff off - his first wife's, you know - and I toted it around for a day and a half just for fun. Got it caught in my hair three times, and that's not countin' when I almost lost the stone down a sewer grate. Not that it'd be much of a loss."

"Hence pawning it off?" Martha glanced at her for a moment, almost smiling. "Look, Rose..."

"I'm sorry," Rose said, quickly. "For all this, and the Doctor, too. God knows he can be a git sometimes - and 's not like he'll ever talk anything but circles around the stuff that really matters - but you can ask me what you want, if you like. I imagine you don't know much about me."

Martha studied her and stopped right there in the street. "Yeah? Okay then, Rose - it's obvious he's missed you like crazy. Why the hell did you leave?"

"I - what?" Rose managed, stunned. "I didn't - " 

It took her a moment. She had to resist the urge to go back and shout at the Doctor out of sheer exasperation. "He told you I left?"

Now Martha was starting to look confused. "You didn't? But... I think he said you were with your family. Happy."

"Safe," Rose muttered a little darkly, and shook her head. "No, it's... a long story. But we were forcefully separated - I never would've left him if I had a choice. I've spent the last few years working on something he said was impossible, just to get back here."

"For him?" Martha said, something more than curiosity in her tone, but Rose couldn't really begrudge her for it.

"Well, yeah," she said, and bit her lip on her wry smile. "For him, and the end of the world."

"It's always something complicated with him, isn't it?" Martha's gaze fixed somewhere over Rose's shoulder, toward the street starting to wake up for the day, and she slid Rose an unreadable look. "Suns possessing people, monsters in sewers, hiding from things that eat lifespans and statues that kill you by getting you stuck in 1969..."

"You know," Rose said, slowly, "Madame de Pompadour told me once, 'the Doctor is worth the monsters,' but that's not it, not really. He'd like to think it's all about him - and yeah, okay, it's a little about him," she added, with a mischievous look to Martha, who actually smiled, "but it's about this life, isn't it? Even this - stuck in 1969 - it's like visiting another country. You can see so much just by living it, and we're right here, London, nearly two decades before I'm born. My mum's here, somewhere, and she's barely a toddler! We can wear the clothes and eat the food and learn the dances and all the lingo, and then in a few months we can go back home to a little blue box that's bigger on the inside. I mean - this, right here, it all only happens once. And four decades out of our time, we get to live it."

Martha shook her head and laughed. "Yeah, okay," she said, "I get it now. You're just as mad as he is."

"Hey," Rose protested, but she fell comfortably in-step with Martha when she started walking again. "I meant it, you know. When I thanked you for looking after him."

"He does need it, doesn't he?" Martha said wryly and Rose bit her lip on a smile.

It felt like they could be friends, or at least on decent terms, and Rose felt a weight lift from her shoulders that she hadn't realised had been there before. "He really does. And 'm pretty sure you'll do some amazing things in your future, Martha Jones."

Her mouth tugging in an unwilling smile, Martha said, "...Thanks, I think. Oh, this is me - looks like they're still hiring, if you want to try your luck."

She left Rose at the doors. Rose studied the hiring sign in the window, the familiar shopfront, and wondered why it felt so much like she'd come full-circle; all she needed were Autons in a basement and a madman with a plastic arm, she thought, and turned away from Henrik's before she could start.

She had a ring to sell, first, and a Doctor to talk to. Then she'd worry about - 

"Rose? Rose!"

The voice was unfamiliar. Rose still spun on her heel out of instinct, searching for the source before she realised no one should know her here and now. By then, it was too late; a young man, about her age, was hurrying toward her. He was still unfamiliar, though he looked at her with recognition - Rose had the oddest urge to call him _pretty_ , but something about the mulish set to his mouth, relief and annoyance in equal measure, stilled her tongue. "Do I know you?" she said instead, and his eyes widened.

"Oh," he said, "I guess that's now. Um. No, I suppose not. But you will."

Rose paused. "Crossin' established timestreams isn't really - "

"Yeah, I know, you've said," he said, and shifted on his feet, "Look, you're the one who told us to look for you - generally, I mean, you didn't say anything specific - so, I'm guessing this has already happened. Will happen."

"Is happening?" Rose said, amused despite herself, and searched his gaze when he smiled like he knew her. If Torchwood had taught her anything, it was that she had good instincts, and she wasn't feeling anything bad, just - niggling, like this whole business with the Doctor's own causal loop. "'spose I might've set up my own loop here. Should we... grab a cuppa or something? There's a café just across the street."

He exhaled in relief. "Yeah, just let me - "

As he pulled out a smartphone - sleeker and newer than anything Rose had ever seen - his sleeve slipped down, and Rose caught sight of a vortex manipulator on his wrist. She frowned. "You aren't a time agent, are you?"

"Why," he started, and then followed her gaze. "Right. No, you're the one who - wait," he said, stopping still. "Doesn't this mean you knew we'd be stranded here the whole time?"

"I could've," Rose said. "Are you saying I gave that to you? Where'd I even get one? What about - "

 _The Doctor_ , she didn't say. His gaze was sympathetic as he raised his phone to his ear.

"Sorry," he said, and smiled a bit. "Spoilers."


End file.
